Congressional Appropriators Must Reject ICE's Request for Even More Money for Abusive Immigration Detention

July 18, 2017

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Congressional Appropriators Must Reject ICE's Request for Even More Money for Abusive Immigration Detention

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Heidi Altman & Julia Toepfer

As Congress debates this week how to spend tax dollars next year, including how much of that money should go to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts to increase its arrests and detention of immigrants, ICE had the audacity to submit a separate request for even more money to be used in the remaining three months of the 2017 fiscal year.

Congress already gave ICE a whopping $2.5 billion to spend this year, while also reprimanding the agency for its “lack of fiscal discipline and cavalier management of funding for detention operations.” Despite its massive budget, ICE’s immigration detention system is rife with human rights violations. ICE has shown it is unwilling and unable to provide for the basic health, safety, and due process rights of the men, women, and children in its custody. There is no justification to expand immigration detention at the expense of taxpayers and human lives.

Nearly 200 organizations sent the below letter to appropriators in Congress today, urging them to reject this new request. The letter was part of the larger #DefundHate campaign calling on Congress to refuse to pour Americans’ money into the costly and abusive detention system.